


Soteria

by GooseAndGold



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Rebuild of Evangelion | Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition
Genre: "Sequel Rebuild" theory, M/M, Pilot!Kaworu, Psychological horror in later chapters, Student!Shinji, Timeline overlap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-07-19 18:50:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7373392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GooseAndGold/pseuds/GooseAndGold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"Just repeat the same thing over and over until you're finally happy with the way it makes you feel. That's all you can do."</em>
</p><p>A boy named Ikari Shinji is summoned to Tokyo-3 by his estranged father. A boy named Nagisa Kaworu pilots the bioweapon called "Evangelion."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Safe Place.

 

* * *

“Everyone, please welcome your newest classmate, Ikari Shinji. Ikari-kun, could you please tell us about yourself?”

“Oh. Sure.” Shinji has thought a lot about this opportunity. It's a chance for a new beginning. He didn't have any real friends in his last school, and he could tell he wasn't really that well-liked in general. He knows he was the weird kid. But here he can make a new impression. He can be a new person.

“Hi everyone. My name's Ikari Shinji. Uh, I just moved here from Ube, in Yamaguchi-ken” He bows, adding “Let's all work hard together.” When he raises his head, Shinji glances over the classroom, seeing politely attentive but unfamiliar faces watching him. He watches them watching him for only a second before he looks back to his teacher.

“Now, where should I put you,” the older man muses as he surveys the class. Almost half of the desks are empty, which Shinji guesses means a lot of families are leaving Tokyo-3 lately. He doesn't really blame them—he's not sure why he was brought somewhere so dangerous, anyways.

“Yamamoto-sensei,” one of the students calls, raising a hand. “There's an empty desk next to mine.”

“Ah, Nagisa-kun. Thank you. Ikari-kun, please take a seat.”

Shinji bows again and walks down the aisle, trying not to meet anyone's gaze as he passes them. He slides into the seat next to the other student and looks up. When he meets Nagisa's eyes, he feels himself go stiff. He had to be sent to sit next to a guy like _this_?

The other boy's mouth widens into a broad, gentle smile. “Hello there, Ikari-kun. It's very nice to meet you.”

“Ah. Hi. You too, uh...Nagisa-san.”

“Oh, you can just call me Kaworu,” he whispers as roll-call begins.

Shinji feels his face heat up, so he looks down at his lap instead of responding. Somehow, being asked to be so familiar with this boy so quickly...it's really intimidating.

“Alright then. Let's get started. Is everyone here? Aida?”

“Present.”

“Tanaka? Oh, she's left, hasn't she. She's still on my roster. Ah. Tachibana?”

“Present.”

“Sakurai?”

“Here!”

“Suzuhara?” The teacher proceeds through the class list, and Shinji decides he should try to pay attention and learn everyone's names as quick as he can. There's not many students compared to his last class, so it should be easy enough. Suzuhara raises his hand, and Shinji tries to commit his name to memory.

“Nagisa, I already know you're here. So...next is Horaki.”

“Present!”

“Motomiya?”

“Here!”

“Rokubungi? Rokubungi Rei? Not here again today, hmm,” the teacher marks the name. “And lastly, Watanabe?”

“I'm here!”

The teacher takes another glance at the list and then around the classroom. “That's everyone then, is it? Then let's begin. Page 112 in your textbooks, please. That's the _3_ _rd_ _Edition History of Japan and Her Colonies_ , Ikari-kun.”

They're half an hour into the lesson—in which Shinji is realizing that this class is farther behind than his last one, unless they're covering early-modern Japanese history out of order—when a siren begins. He looks around, hoping everyone else will tell him what's going on. Nagisa stands and puts his hands on Shinji's desk, leaning forward to be heard above the blaring noise and automated directions. “It's a mandatory evacuation,” the boy tells him. “Follow the class and stay safe, alright? I need to go now.”

“Nagisa!” One of the girls in the class shouts.

“I know, I'm leaving. Look after the new student, alright, Horaki-san?”

“Just get the hell out of here,” growls the boy who's not in a school uniform. Suzuhara, maybe?

The evacuation is a blur. Horaki-san, who is apparently the class representative, finds the time to explain some of the situation to them as they descend past the basement of the school and to an escalator leading deep into the earth. The speakers continue to blare the alarm, interspersed with instructions that Shinji assumes are what they're following.

The shelter they enter is well-lit but sparse, and painted with the bright monotony of a hospital waiting room. There are a few mats to sit on, and Shinji chooses one that hasn't been taken by civilians or classmates, in the corner. Sitting with his back to the wall and his arms around his knees, he listens to the sporadic speaker announcements to remain calm, and to the conversations his classmates are having.

“ _The mandatory evacuation is still in place. Please remain calm and stay in your shelter until the situation is clear._ ”

Shinji has trouble believing they're arguing about which of the girls in Class 3-A is most attractive. Is this situation really not that dangerous? Nagisa said to stay safe, so is it going to be this calm the whole time?

Shinji feels the wall he's leaning against vibrate like a train is passing nearby, and he flinches at the feel of it, but he can't make himself move away from the wall.

“It's not the face that matters so much as the body,” Suzuhara states loudly enough to grab Shinji's attention.

Horaki stands. “Stop being so crude!” She hisses. “Especially when there's other people here! You're being inconsiderate.”

Shinji can't see the expression the boy makes, but he quiets down with a grumble.

The wall rumbles again, more noticeably. He can feel the vibration through his sneakers, steady shakes like drum beats.

“ _The mandatory evacuation is still in place. Please remain calm and stay in your shelter until the situation is clear._ ”

A huge shiver of the walls makes the lights flicker, and Shinji is pretty sure he isn't imagining the boom of it. Conversation in the shelter dies down immediately, as people look up and around. Shinji looks too, but he can't see anything displaying any information for them.

“ _The mandatory—_ ”

He lurches back against the wall with a yell when a crack splits in the roof, raining down debris.

People are jumping up off he mats and crowding against the walls when the crack gives way, and dirt and rocks rain into the middle of the shelter.

When Shinji lowers his arms from protecting his face, he sees...purple.

He thinks it's a pipe, or some kind of train car or something, that's been thrown into the shelter. But it curls in on itself and then is lifted up, and Shinji realizes it's a finger, on a hand. It's the weapon he's seen pictures of everywhere, on TV and in the papers and online.

It's an Evangelion.

There's a long, long silence as all Shinji can manage is to watch the thing push itself to its feet, towering up and up.

He knew the Evangelion was big, but...

Suddenly, with a speed that shouldn't be possible, the machine rocks onto the balls of its feet and launches forward and out of view of the hole it knocked through the earth.

There's roaring and thundering in the distance, and for a moment no one says anything until a man asks “Is everyone alright?”

“Ah, I think so,” Horaki says after a few of the students turn to look at her for the answer. “Everyone?”

A few people start to cry. The alarm is still echoing from somewhere else, but the automated announcements aren't playing any more. The rumbling comes close again almost immediately. More dirt shakes lose from the hole gaping up into the sky. Shinji slides down the wall, wrapping his arms back around his knees.

Why did he come here? Why did they make him come here? Why did _he_ make him _come here_?

There's another crash, so loud it hurts. Shinji can't hear his own scream.

There's a bright flash, whipping around like lightening. Thundering of the Evangelion's footsteps. It falls again—its knee barely misses the shelter. More of the ceiling crumbles down. Shinji hears more screaming, and his own throat hurts.

The line of light snaps around again, cracking like a whip. It beats at the machine and at the ground, tearing up huge clouds of dirt. Shinji is pressed as far into the corner as he can go. The whip cracks down into the shelter, and when it's pulled back a second later, there are two bodies on the floor, a spray of blood smeared across the floor where they popped.

He hears a roar.

It hurts his ears. He grinds his teeth together until they ache, but the noise won't go away. The Evangelion is rearing back, roaring. It has a mouth, gaped open. One of the angel's whips streaks out and wraps around its neck in an instant, but its roar doesn't stop. It grabs the whip with both hands, pulling apart, stretching until the thing tears and a torrent of cold blood falls down on them.

The stump and the remaining whip flail madly, and the machine catches the intact limb, pulling it until the angel lurches forward into the Evangelion's grip.

It twists and drives the thing to the ground and rips off a chitinous insect leg with a growl, turning it like a knife and beating away at the angel as it thrashes and squirms. Long gashes appear up the machine's armour where it's struck, sizzling from the heat. Its roar gets higher and higher, pitching up like a scream, until the thing suddenly lies still, going limp with a crash.

The Evangelion stands straight, roaring up into the sky once more before it falls to its knees and goes completely silent as well.

The alarm continues to blare.

 

* * *

 

The next day is Saturday. School will resume on Monday like it usually would. Shinji spends the first day curled up on his bed, listening to the radio. Whenever the news comes on, he turns the volume off and listens to cicadas until he's sure they won't be talking about the angel anymore. He tries calling one of his friends from Ube, but he hangs up the phone after the first ring.

On Sunday morning, a man and a woman in matching suits come to the door. They bring him a bin full of food—most of it is instant or frozen. They give him a card and tell him if he has any concerns or emergencies, he can call. He takes the card and the food, and puts them away.

Sunday night he calls the number and listens to it ring. No one answers. He goes to bed with the window open.

Cicadas sound the same here.

 

* * *

 

On Friday night, Shinji had decided not to return to the school, but by Sunday afternoon he was sick of his quiet apartment and the next morning he was getting dressed for school without really thinking about it.

He gets to class early and only a few people are there, talking together in the corner. He doesn't try to join them—just sits at his desk. Other students filter in and smile politely at him, but none of them approach him.

There's a sudden loud murmur that spreads through the class when the door swings open again, and Shinji looks up to see Nagisa step through the door. The boy's gaze finds his immediately and he smiles, walking directly to his desk.

“Good morning, Ikari-kun. How are you doing? Are you alright?”

He's not. He really just wants to say that he's not alright. He shouldn't be in this city. He shouldn't have come. He shouldn't have stayed.

“I guess I'm okay.”

Nagisa nods and sits, still watching him. “You're sure?”

Shinji nods back, and gives him a pretty good smile. “Yeah, I'm sure. Just shaken up. How about you, Nagisa-san? Was your shelter alright?” Why do they have to ask each other that if they aren't going to answer honestly? If they can't burden each other by talking about it, why is it polite to bring it up?

“I wasn't in a shelter this time,” he says, and his smile gets a little distant. “I'm the pilot of the Test Type Eva. The Unit-01.”

Shinji laughs politely at the joke. Nagisa's smile doesn't change.

“Wait, that's not...they wouldn't have a teenager pilot it, right? It would be a soldier or something.”

“I can see why that would seem logical,” Nagisa tells him, reaching into his desk and pulling out a textbook. “But not just anyone can pilot an Evangelion. I'm afraid only a handful of people can operate Unit-01.”

“But then...that's...Nagisa-san, _are_ you alright? That angel was cutting through the armour of your Evangelion! Aren't you...isn't that...”

“I'm completely fine," the other boy says, looking up into Shinji's eyes. "Thank you for asking. It means a lot to me that you would be concerned for my wellbeing."

“Of _course_ I'd worry! The Eva...if you piloted it then you protected our class's shelter, right? I mean, I wouldn't have even been able to do that,” Shinji laughs nervously, scratching absently at his hand. “It would all be a bit too much. I barely managed to stay in the shelter.”

“You have every quality of a great Eva pilot, Shinji. But you should do what you truly want to, instead of what you think others would be impressed by. If the time is right, you might pilot the Eva for yourself one day.”

Nagisa's voice is gentle enough, but Shinji finds himself growing uncomfortable meeting his eyes, so he reaches down for his bag and starts pulling out his notebooks. “Yeah, maybe,” he replies when he realizes he hasn't said anything else.

Nagisa doesn't say anything more, and soon, the class has filled as much as it was going to, and Yamamoto-sensei begins roll-call again like everything is normal. Shinji doesn't pay as much attention today—he mostly listens for his own name, second on the list, and hardly hears most of the rest.

“Nagisa?”

“I'm here.”

“Good to have you with us today, Nagisa. Horaki?”

The class representative raises her hand, and the list continues.

“Motomiya? Motomiya Rin?”

“Rin is out today,” Horaki calls. “She's going to try to be back tomorrow.”

“Sure. I'll make a note. Is Rokubungi here today?”

“She'll be here tomorrow as well,” Nagisa calls from next to Shinji.

“Oh yes? Glad to hear it. That leaves Watanabe. Yes, there you are. Alright, we'll pick up where we were interrupted on Friday.”

Friday. Just like that. They were learning about Japanese history before, weren't they?

Why?

“We're on page 114 of the textbook. Can anyone remember what I said was the most important factor that led to the beginning of the Edo period?”

There _is_ some reason, isn't there? This will teach them to stop angels, right? To defend themselves? To protect themselves? Tell them how to fight? Where to hide? What they're doing here? What is he doing here?

He notices the blood, then. It drips with muted little splats onto the page of his book. He can feel it sliding down his temples,

matting his hair,

filling the seams of his lips,

curling around his chin to run down his neck.

He is covered in blood.

“ari-kun? _Ikari-kun_. Take some deep breaths.” That was Nagisa. Nagisa is here. He isn't fighting. “It's just a nosebleed. You're okay.”

Shinji opens his mouth, gasping for air, and spit mixes with the blood on his lips and the taste of metal floods over his tongue.

“I can take him to the nurse's office,” a girl's voice says. There are hands on his arms, and they urge him to stand.

Shinji feels his ears slowly stop ringing as he walks. Horaki is with him. She keeps glancing over at him nervously. “You're going to be alright,” she tells him twice.

Shinji barely looks around the nurse's office when they arrive. It feels embarrassing to be here, when he isn't really hurt. The nurse cleans the blood on his face and checks his eyes and his ears, as well as his temperature while he sits on the crinkly paper stretched across the examination table. He's fine, but she tells him he can skip school tomorrow, because stress probably caused the nosebleed.

“I'll think about it,” he tells her with a smile, and she leaves to get him a glass of water.

Horaki is still with him. She bends over, hands on her knees so her face is level with his as he sits on the table. “You feeling any better? Do you want to go home and try again tomorrow?”

 _Try again_. Because today wasn't really a success, was it?

She must see something on his face, because she gives a sympathetic smile. “This kind of thing happens all the time,” she tells him gently. “Don't worry.”

He isn't sure whether she means the angel attack, or the nosebleed, so he asks “What kind of thing does?”

“All of it,” she tells him softly. He thinks, from looking at her, that none of it has ever happened to her before this.

The bell rings, and Shinji flinches. He hopes Horaki didn't notice, but he knows she must have. “It's break time. Fifteen minutes until class. If the nurse lets you leave, you can come back to class, but it's okay if you think you should wait a while or just head home. Okay? Whatever you want to do.”

He nods and thanks her, and she leaves just as the nurse returns. He gets told the same thing again— _whatever you want to do_ —as he drinks the glass of water.

“I'll go back. I don't mind. I guess I just panicked.”

“That's fine, Ikari-kun. And it's alright if you change your mind later.”

After he thanks her and leaves, Shinji makes his way back down the hall, toward where he things the classroom is. He's on the first floor, but he thinks if he takes the stairs at the end of this hall he should be close to where the class is. Hopefully he can get back to his desk while most of his classmates are gone so he doesn't have to see them watching him and staring at the bloodstain on his shirt when he walks by.

He's almost at the end of the hall when he hears shouting outside. He turns and sees two of the boys in his class, shouting at Nagisa. Shinji sees Suzuhara, the bigger of the two, grab Nagisa's collar.

He pushes out the doors and runs toward them before he can think about what he's doing.

“Let him go!” He shouts, stopping short next to them. He's never really been in a fight, and he's not sure they'll listen to him after he started screaming in the middle of class just because of a bit of blood, but he...he feels like he can't just go back to class while they give Nagisa a black eye.

“I'm not lettin' him go. I'm beatin' the shit out of him. You should thank me. This fuck's the _reason_ we almost died in the shelter. An' you know what? My sister's class was in that shelter too an' they say she's gonna be in laid up in the hospital for _months_. I ain't puttin' this turd down.”

“Nagisa is the reason we _didn't_ die! If you're going to beat him, then you'll...you'll have to hit me too!” Shinji ducks under Suzuhara's outstretched arm, coming to stand directly in front of Nagisa, his back pressed to the pilot's chest.

“Toji,” hisses the shorter classmate. “Come on. Class is in two minutes. Let's not rough up the kid that just saw the nurse, huh?”

Suzuhara glares and lets go of Nagisa with a shove that makes Shinji lose his balance for a moment too. He stumbles, but neither of them fall, and they watch as their classmates march back into the school.

Shinji lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. “Are you alright, Nagisa-san?”

“I asked you to call me Kaworu,” he replies with a smile as he brushes absently at his now-wrinkled shirt. “But I'm fine, thank you. You didn't need to worry about me.”

“Well I couldn't just walk away when I saw he was going to beat you up! Anyways, you _did_ protect us yesterday. He was just being an asshole.”

“So in turn you would have tried to protect me, even though you were frightened,” Nagisa surmises. “That's what makes you so endearing, Ikari-kun.”

Shinji drops his eyes, feeling his neck heat up. How is he expected to respond to that?

“What makes you think I was scared,” Shinji mutters, though it was probably obvious to everyone who was there.

Nagisa ignores the comment as the bell rings and signals the start of the next period. “I'm very happy that you would want to look out for me, Ikari-kun. But you don't need to protect me, from the Lilin or from anything else.”

 _You don't have to protect us either. But you do. Why do you pilot the Eva?_ _Why would you choose to be the one that fights those things?_ Shinji wants to ask Nagisa all the questions swimming around in his head, but instead all he can manage is “Okay. I guess. Either way, thank you for yesterday,” as they walk side-by-side back into the school.


	2. Familiar Person.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back, and thank you to everyone who left me those amazing, encouraging comments. It helps to know that I'm doing something right!
> 
> A warning that this chapter, and the one following it, will involve self-endangerment and self-harm. If you were alright with the NGE series and the recent films, you'll be fine here too. It's just a heads up.

* * *

 

_The alarms are blaring, but the announcements on the shelter's intercom are just crackling static over broken speakers. Mid-day sunlight pours in through the hole in the ceiling. He can feel the rumbling, shaking dust through the hole, and making the solid ground feel unsteady._

 

_Everyone in front of him is frozen in place, just like he is. They are sitting, or standing, or huddled in a ball, but nobody moves. The shaking gets louder, or quieter, or it stops, but nobody moves. There's a crash, and a roar, and the whip-like limb of the angel streaks into the shelter, and when it comes away, two people are gone, and there's blood sprayed across the floors and up the walls._

 

_Shinji feels liquid run down his face. It's warm. He feels it making a slow track down to his mouth. It drips off his forehead and into his eyes. It seeps into the crack of his lips, and into his nose. It spills down the underside of his chin and along his throat. It stains his shirt. He can't move. Nobody moves._

 

* * *

 

Tuesday morning, Shinji wakes up early enough to make himself a real breakfast and lunch, saving the ready-to-eat meals that were delivered to him for a rainy day. He packs his bag with books and homework, throws it over his shoulder, and makes the long walk to school.

 

Shinji arrives at school when a few other students are still making their way through the gates. He gets to the class later than most and stares at his shoes as he walks so he doesn't meet anyone's eye. When he sits, the door slides open and he's the only one who glances up. A girl walks in, covered in bandages. His eyes widen as he takes her in.

 

She would probably be cute, normally. She's small. Thin. Expressionless. But one side of her face is bandaged and patched, and the gauze wraps around her forehead and peaks out from under the half-buttoned collar of her shirt. Her arm is in a cast with a sling. And the bandages are dirty. Torn. Covered in dark red-brown stains. As he stares as her, he sees a trail of blood drip from under the wrapping on her forehead and down the line of her nose. Her eyes go white when her head turns toward him, and he gasps in a sharp breath.

 

The door slides open, and she steps through. She's the same girl, in the school uniform and with the same hair cut short to frame her face. The same girl, but no blood and broken bones—not even any bandages peaking out from the collar of her blouse. She walks into the classroom quietly, and the buzzing chatter dies away almost instantly. After a moment speaking quietly with the teacher, she walks down the aisle toward Shinji. He fights between staring and looking away before she passes and sits in the row behind him without acknowledging him at all.

 

Role call happens again, as it does every day, and after Shinji's name is called, he waits to learn which of the girls who had been missing yesterday is sitting behind him now. But really, he's sure he already knows.

 

Nagisa said yesterday that a girl was coming back. Rokubungi. When the name comes up on the class list, she quietly replies “Yes.”

 

Shinji doesn't turn around to look at her, because he can't think of a reason that wouldn't look like staring. Still, it feels like she's watching him for the entire class. He feels his neck heating up, and he doesn't learn a single thing from the lecture.

 

Nagisa doesn't feel like she does, he thinks. Nagisa feels intimidating, yeah, but that's because of his looks, his smile, and his obvious ease with everything. And, of course, he feels intimidating because he was chosen as a pilot for something like the Evangelion, which makes him like some kind of hero, really.

 

Rokubungi, though, feels like she isn't supposed to be there.

 

* * *

 

 The alarm sounds just before the lunch bell is set to ring, and for a moment Shinji tries to force himself to relax and not flinch too badly at the sound. When he realizes that he isn't overreacting to the lunch bell and that it's the _real_ alert blaring a warning for angel attacks, though, he feels a sour flush of nausea. Students around him are standing, grim-faced, and filing out toward the hall. It isn't the direction they went before, and Shinji takes a moment to realize that the shelter they went to before is destroyed now.

 

“Horaki-san,” Shinji calls, trying to be heard over the noise of the alarm and the evacuation. “Hora—ah! Nagisa-san, do you know where we're supposed to go, since the last shelter...” He can't find the words.

 

Nagisa turns from the door, stepping back into the classroom to where Shinji is watching anxiously. “You'll go to another shelter. Rei and I need to go. The two of us will keep you safe, alright?”

 

“You're going to fight again.”

 

“I am,” Nagisa replies with a small smile. The blaring alarms and evacuation message are as loud as Shinji had remembered, but somehow the boy seems to be speaking softly as he leans in. “I think it worries you that I'll be fighting, but I told you that you needn't ever worry about my well-being.”

 

Shinji can't just stop worrying about someone who's going out to fight monsters, especially monsters as terrifying as the angels, so he ignores that comment. “Just be safe, okay, Nagisa-san?”

 

Nagisa's smile broadens, and he lifts a hand, brushing the backs of his knuckles gently against Shinji's cheek in a way that makes Shinji freezes in place with surprise. “You really _can_ just call me Kaworu, you know,” he says with a huff of laughter before he turns and rushes out the door.

 

It only takes one repetition of the evacuation instructions over the speakers for Shinji to snap out of it and follow his classmates to their newly-designated shelter. But for the rest of the evacuation, as he waits quietly on a mat in the corner of this new shelter, he's able to touch his fingers against his cheek whenever he feels the earth rumble. It makes him feel a little bit better.

 

* * *

 

After they get the all-clear and return to the school grounds, they're told that classes are delayed by an hour. It gives the students time for lunch, but they aren't free to go home for the day since no one was hurt. Shinji thinks about it for a moment and decides he prefers it this way—he would rather be busy in school than sitting at home in his dark apartment.

 

He sits down at an empty table in the cafeteria to eat lunch by himself, since Kaworu hasn't returned and he doesn't know anyone else to talk to. He starts eating his bento and thinking about whether to stop and buy a book on his way home when Horaki and Motomiya place their trays on the other end of the table from where he's sitting.

 

“Can we eat with you?” Horaki asks with a smile when he looks up at them.

 

“Oh. Sure, if you want to,” he replies.

 

The girls sit and begin to talk, and every few sentences one of them adds “Don't you think, Ikari-san?” or some similar thing to the conversation, and before he knows it, he's drawn in. He appreciates it, honestly—it seems that no one in the class is particularly close to the Evangelion pilots, so he was worried that he would have trouble interacting with anyone but Kaworu since he had been seen talking to him. Horaki, though, has been thoughtful to him since he first arrived at the school, so soon he feels himself relax a little and not worry about every word before he says it.

 

It's nice.

 

He's halfway through his food when Shinji looks up and sees Suzuhara and his friend enter the cafeteria, and he drops his gaze immediately, trying not to be noticed.

 

It doesn't do him any good, because the pair wanders over as soon as they have their food, and sit down across from Horaki and Motomiya. “Did you guys see the footage yet?” The shorter boy asks the table.

 

“How can you still want to watch that stuff after what happened last week, Aida?” Motomiya asks.

 

Suzuhara snorts. “How can you _not_ want to? This is happening in our city! They fight right above our heads and you don't want to know what's going on?”

 

Motomiya looks away, folding her arms. “I guess I'd just rather not think about it unless I absolutely have to. Sorry if that makes me weird.”

 

“Whaddabout you, Ikari?”

 

Shinji nearly chokes, looking up to see Suzuhara watching him. Why is Suzuhara talking to him like they're friends?

 

“I uh,” he starts, thinking about the question he was asked. Their classmates fought the angels, and he had trouble just sitting still and being protected. Even though it's uncomfortable, he decides that he can be willing to watch what they had to do. “I want to watch it. It's not like that's the hard part, right?”

 

For a second he worries that response is too harsh and that Motomiya will find him rude, but she nods thoughtfully, and he feels a little better about it.

 

Aida pulls out his phone and brings up the footage. “NERV is pulling this file down everywhere. It took me half an hour to track it down online,” he brags.

 

Despite their reluctance before, even the girls crowd around to see what happened. Aida takes a look around to be sure everyone is watching, and then hits the play button on his phone. The footage is a little grainy and a little too far away, but it's still very clear what's going on. There are two Evangelions—Kaworu's purple model, and a white one beside it, armed with a huge rifle of some kind.

 

The angel they're fighting is... “Is it that blue thing?” Horaki asks, leaning past Suzuhara to get a look at the screen. Shinji's glad someone else asked first.

 

“Yeah. Shh. Just watch,” Aida replies distractedly.

 

The fighting should be too far to hear any sound, but there's a screeching and the crackle of static when the angel seems to split in half and fires a beam of light that whites out the video footage. There's a mess of lines on the screen before it clears, and Shinji spots the Evangelion units braced behind smouldering shields that are still red-hot from the impact.

 

A pillar of some sort erupts from the ground between the two machines, and it opens to reveal matching rifles. The Evangelions duck out from cover with that unbelievable swiftness, grabbing the rifles and then leaning back behind cover.

 

After another blast that blanks out the screen, Shinji watches as the Evas drop to a kneel from around their cover and open fire, only to have the rounds bounce off some kind of...force field.

 

“What is that?”

 

Aida pushes his glasses up on his nose. “They call it an 'AT Field,'” he replies.

 

Motomiya frowns. “'AT'? Is it an acronym for something?”

 

Aida and Suzuhara shrug in unison. “Who knows,” the taller boy replies. “Probably.”

 

The AT field stays in place even when the firing ceases. From this distance it looks like concentric circles—red, but barely visible, like a rainbow or the shimmering on a hot highway.

 

Shinji feels tense, even though he knows how this ends—Kaworu and Rokubungi haven't shown up for lunch yet, but he knows they beat the angel. He knows they won. He clenches his fists. He's _sure_ they're okay.

 

After that, the video has a lot of waiting. The cube doesn't move, and the Evangelions don't move. Occasionally the angel fires another energy beam, but it never breaks through the cover provided before a new pillar can pop up to replace the smouldering heap of the last one. The Evangelions don't fire. It's a stalemate.

 

Another few minutes pass quietly, seeming like an eternity, but even Suzuhara doesn't fidget. They're all watching intently when the white Evangelion—Rokubungi, Shinji assumes—leaps out from behind cover and draws a blade, charging forward with impossible speed. Shinji's fingers clench in fists in the material of his trousers as he watches the grainy footage.

 

The angel opens up again, the screen blurring from the charging of an attack. Rokubungi ducks to the side and out of the way of the beam at the last moment, and when the screen clears and focuses again, Shinji sees that the Eva's left arm is missing, and dark red fluid is splashed down its side, trickling sluggishly from its shoulder. His fingers clench tighter under the table. He knows it's not actually blood—it's probably the colour of some coolant or engine oil or something—but he feels a little sick anyways.

 

Rokubungi's machine recovers from the blow and it crouches, bracing only a moment before it springs forward again and drives its knife into the angel's centre as it reopens to charge yet another attack. The screen is whited out yet again—they can barely see what's happening as the footage wails and sparks seem to spray from between the angel and the Eva. It's clear that Rokubungi is trying to drive her knife into the angel's core, and as it saws away, the purple unit rushes up and Kaworu draws his own blade, piercing from the other side. There's a pause when everything seems to go still except for the occasional spark flying past the machines' huge silhouettes, and then the screen whites out once more, and the footage comes to a stop.

 

Shinji quietly lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He was sure that Kaworu—and Rokubungi—hadn't died, so he had tried not to think or worry about it, just like the other boy had asked. But seeing what they went through, he can't help feeling anxious and tense. Thinking about it, and the damage their robots have taken against the angels, it's impossible that neither of them were hurt at all, isn't it?

 

* * *

 

“Were you waiting for us?”

 

Shinji is standing out of the way of the school gate on Wednesday morning, picking at a loose bit of plastic on the handle of his umbrella when he hears Kaworu speak. He looks up to see Kaworu and Rokubungi carrying matching blue umbrellas. Kaworu has his free hand in the pocket of his pants, and he's watching Shinji with the same friendly smile he always seems to wear. Everything feels normal. They're both...fine.

 

“Oh,” Shinji replies, glancing at Rokubungi. He doesn't want to be rude and admit he didn't know that she would be coming to school with Kaworu, so he just answers “Yeah. Good morning.”

 

They make their way to the lockers together, and change into their dry indoor shoes, hanging their umbrellas to dry against the wall. The whole time they make their way to the class, Shinji doesn't say anything to Rokubungi, but he's never seen her speak to anyone but their teacher, so maybe she doesn't mind. He just feels a little guilty, because really, he has no reason to be bothered by her. Really, he should be thanking her. He should be thanking both of them—he saw Aida's video stream yesterday. He knows what they did. He knows how much danger Rokubungi, especially, put herself in to protect everyone. He can't imagine going through all that and then coming into school the next morning and sitting through a class where none of the other students want anything to do with her. She creeps him out, sure, but...he's being unfair. He owes her. They all do.

 

As they enter the class together and Shinji takes his seat, he turns and almost makes eye contact with Kaworu, looking just past the other boy and trying not to blush. “Thank you, uh, you know. For yesterday. For everything.” He can't help looking, though, when Kaworu's face splits into a brilliant smile.

 

“Of course, Shinji-kun,” he says brightly.

 

Shinji doesn't know how to reply, so he turns in his chair just enough to see the girl seated behind him. “You too, Rokubungi-san. Thank you.” She looks surprised, but she nods, so Shinji decides to consider it a win.

 

* * *

 

Home economics class is in the middle of the day, and they're in the cooking classroom, learning how to use the fryers safely. Shinji, being a late addition to the class, is matched up with one of the existing groups—Tachibana, and Rokubungi. The two girls are already getting their materials when he is sent over to their workstation, and he stands to the side and tries to catch their attention to find out what he should be doing.

 

“Can you get the burner lit? Do you know how?” Tachibana replies when he finally gets the chance to ask.

 

“Yeah, I can do it,” he tells her. He carefully lights the burner and places the wok above it, adding oil after glancing back at the blackboard to read the written instructions.

 

Without anything to do, he looks around again. Tachibana is measuring the ingredients for tempura batter, her long hair tied back in a tight bun under a hair net for cooking, and her tongue pokes out of the side of her mouth as she frowns with concentration at the measuring spoons.

 

And Rokubungi...

 

Shinji makes an aborted choking noise and turns off his burner, running over to Rokubungi as quick as he can. She has nicks and cuts all up her hands, and there are a few small smears of blood on the cutting board where she's preparing vegetables.

 

“Hey,” he hisses, trying not to draw attention. “Are you...” He wants to ask her if she's okay, but clearly she isn't. She's cut herself. She's bleeding. There's no way she can't have noticed.

 

She stops preparing the vegetables and looks up at him stiffly. “Am I what?” she asks softly and without intonation.

 

He can't think of a way to finish the sentence. He doesn't know what to ask her that won't be stupid and obvious, since the whole situation is totally beyond what he's used to. So he just says what comes to mind.

 

“Please let me take you to the nurse.”

 

Her eyes are a little wide as she blinks at him. “Why?”

 

“Because you're bleeding!” He whispers incredulously. “Come on. You're hurt. Let's just go.”

 

Shinji takes her wrist gently—he doesn't want to bump her cuts, and he doesn't want to touch the blood—and leads her quietly to the front of the class where the teacher is making note of something.

 

“Sensei,” Shinji says quietly. He imagines that the class grows quieter and that everyone is watching them, but maybe they aren't.

 

The teacher looks up and her eyes go wide at the sight of red smeared on Rokubungi's palms.

 

“Rokubungi-san had an accident with the vegetable knife,” he lies. “I used to be the health monitor at my old school,” he lies again, “so can I take her to the nurse's office?”

 

“Yes, yes,” she hisses quickly. “Take her there quickly. Make sure they take good care of her. Tell me where you were working so I can clean up the area,” she tells Rokubungi.

 

Rokubungi points a stained fingertip toward Tachibana where she stands staring at the cutting board.

 

“Fine. I'll take care of it. Please make sure she's seen to, Ikari.”

 

Shinji bows and pulls Rokubungi along and out into the hallway. Partway to the nurse's office he realizes how rude and presumptuous it is for him to be dragging and injured girl along behind him, but he doesn't know how else to get her to follow him, so he clenches his teeth and holds his breath and continues forward.

 

The nurse sees him when they enter, and at first he can tell that she assumes he's there for himself, until he steps aside and Rokubungi presents her hands, her face as blank as before.

 

The nurse's eyes widen, but she doesn't panic as she gathers her materials and sets to work on the girl. It's only when she steps out to dispose of her stained swabs that Rokubungi looks up and addresses Shinji.

 

“You are upset.”

 

Shinji scoffs. “Wha...of course I am!” Rokubungi put herself in harm's way to protect everyone with the Eva. It's only natural to be worried about her well-being, isn't it? Beyond that, it seems normal to Shinji to not want to see any classmate get hurt, even if not everyone in the class seems to feel that way.

 

“You shouldn't let yourself get hurt like that,” he tells her softly.

 

“Why not?”

 

He doesn't know what to tell her, actually. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Everything he would say to her sounds selfish. 'I don't want you to.' 'It upsets me.' 'Because you protect us, and for that reason I wouldn't want you to get hurt.'

 

“Rokubungi...uh...can I ask you...” he looks up and waits for her to prompt him to continue, but she doesn't. He shakes his head. “Can I ask...why you pilot the Evangelion?”

 

She blinks at him. “Because I am ordered to.”

 

Oh. _Who orders her to do it?_ “Well uh...would you do it even if you weren't ordered to? If you were given the choice?”

 

She seems surprised. “Of course.”

 

“Then, do you...I mean, do you think it's a good thing? To pilot it?”

 

“Yes.”

 

He nods. “Why?”

 

“It is for the sake of protecting humanity and its desires.”

 

“Well I...” Shinji looks at his hands, where they rest on his lap, seated in the chair where Horaki had waited with him a few days earlier. “I think it's amazing that you would do that. And if you want to protect other people, then...maybe it's not so weird that other people would want to protect you too. Don't you...think so?”

 

She looks at him for a few moments, frowning, clearly assessing something. He finds it intense to watch her eyes, so he looks away, but he doesn't turn his face. After a long moment of silence, punctuated by the muted sound of cicadas, she turns and looks at her hands—cleaned and disinfected, but not yet bandaged.

 

“Maybe that's possible.”

 

* * *

 

 


	3. Friendship

* * *

 

 

Thursday passes uneventfully, though Shinji had stayed up late the night before, and slept poorly, thinking about Rokubungi fighting and cutting her hands.

 

In science class they have a pop quiz that he's ready for by virtue of having transferred from a school that had...fewer interruptions, and therefore covered a lot more material by this point in the year. Mostly it's a private day with no group assignments, and since Kaworu and Rokubungi slip away during the lunch break, he doesn't get much of a chance to talk to them. Even if he did talk to them, he doesn't know what he would say to either of them. Between Rokubungi's injuries and Kaworu's...fingers...he has no idea how to start a casual conversation with them.

 

In the end it's a busy day, and he doesn't get much chance to say anything anyways. He heads home, remembers to buy a book from a second-hand bookstore on the way, and makes a simple supper while he reads. He gets about three chapters in before he realizes he doesn't remember anything that's happened in the story, so he takes a bath and goes to bed.

 

It's Friday when Kaworu approaches him before Shinji can think of something to say to the other boy.

 

“Good morning, Ikari-kun. How are you doing?” Shinji looks up from his desk, which Kaworu is leaning over, palms flat against the wood surface.

 

“Oh. Na...Kaworu-kun. I'm alright. How was your night?”

 

Kaworu tilts his head, and a few strands of silver hair fall out of place. “Oh, it was a little boring. I did get the chance to play the piano though,” he says wistfully.

 

Shinji blinks with surprise. “You play the piano?” He glances down at the hands splayed on his desk, and pictures Kaworu's fingers dancing across a keyboard. He glances away again when he notices that the other boy's fingers are long and slim—perfect for playing, he guesses. He feels warm.

 

“Yes I do. I rather enjoy it. I think music is the highest accomplishment of Lilin culture—an intangible expression of a wealth of discordant emotions that can be brought together into a beautiful harmony. Don't you think so, Ikari-kun?”

 

Shinji's...never really thought about it with that sort of phrasing, if he's honest. But he has always wanted to get better at playing because he's always felt like he's just on the edge of being able to express something with it. So he nods.

 

“Do you play any instruments, by any chance?”

 

Shinji nods again. “I actually play the piano too,” he says. When he sees Kaworu lean forward with open interest, he hurries to clarify “But I'm not very good! I need to practice more. I don't really have a natural talent at it.” _Like you probably do_ , he doesn't add.

 

“No amount of talent would let you compose a masterpiece on the first try,” the other boy tells him with a shrug, straightening up. “It may even be true that the effort one puts into conveying their feelings is essential to making their music feel genuine.”

The bell rings to signal the start of class, and Kaworu turns, saying “I would love to play together sometime, Ikari-kun,” as he slides into his seat.

 

The teacher steps through the classroom door and the Horaki directs everyone to stand and bow to begin the lesson for the day. Amidst the scraping of seats and the shuffling of clothes as everyone takes their seats again, Shinji whispers. “Just Shinji is fine.”

 

“Hmm?” Kaworu raises an eyebrow at him.

 

Shinji fusses with his shirtsleeve, not looking over at the desk next to his. “You can just call me Shinji. Kaworu-kun.”

 

He's pretty sure Kaworu smiles for the rest of the morning classes, but he can't bring himself to check.

 

* * *

 

It's the end of the day on Friday when Shinji works up the nerve to ask Kaworu if he'd maybe like to play piano some time, or study together, or go get some ice cream or something. He stands and waits until the other boy has finished packing his things and catches his attention.

 

“Hey, uh, Kaworu-kun? I was wondering if you had any free time this weekend?”

 

Kaworu looks surprised. “Free time? I don't, actually. I'm afraid I need to go away for a little while.”

 

It's Shinji's turn to be surprised. “Away?” It's probably rude for him to be prying, but he's pretty sure they have school on Monday, so why does it sound like Kaworu is...leaving?

 

“Yes. Just for a little while. For the next few days I need to go overseas. But I'd love to spend time with you after I return. Would that be alright with you?”

 

“Yeah,” Shinji says with a nod. “Of course it would. Oh, but uh...Kaworu-kun, if you're leaving, what if an angel...” It's out of his mouth before he can stop himself from asking. He doesn't want Kaworu to feel like Shinji only wants him around for the sake of piloting the Eva. That's not the way he feels at all.

 

Still, Kaworu gives him a fond look. “Rei will still be here to pilot Unit 00. She's perfectly capable of defeating angels.”

 

Shinji thinks of the footage he saw of the most recent angel fight—Rokubungi's Eva having its arm blown off, and needing Kaworu's Eva to help with the final blow. It seems like some angels could overwhelm just one pilot, but...Kaworu thinks she can do it alone, and he probably knows better than Shinji does, right?

 

So Shinji takes a deep breath, and tells himself to relax. “Okay. Well. When you come back, I'd love to hear you play the piano,” he looks away, self-consciously, fussing with his bangs. “I mean, if that's alright.”

 

Fingers brush against his hair and he goes completely still. “I'd love nothing more,” Kaworu replies as he smooths Shinji's bangs back into their usual place. “Enjoy your weekend, Shinji-kun.”

 

* * *

 

Shinji's not really sure how to have a good weekend in Tokyo-3. When he lived in Ube with his teacher, he'd had someone who scheduled a lot of his time for him. Certain chores had to be done, studying had to happen for a certain amount of time, and meals were cooked and served on a pretty normal schedule. It was a routine he was used to, and it had never been dictated by him.

 

The freedom and the enormous stretch of free time in front of him now are...a little bit intimidating. He spent the last weekend not really doing much of anything besides moping, so he doesn't really know what he should be doing now.

 

He gets started slowly. Changing into some clean clothes. Home-made breakfast with some leftovers set aside for ingredients for supper. Cleaning the dishes after. He pulls out the plug in the sink and watches the foamy, dirty water swirling away, and once it's finished the apartment is quiet again, except the sound of cicadas or the occasional car driving by. It's dark, and it's quiet. Living alone is really, really quiet.

 

Shinji decides that he'll do a little reading while the sun is bright in the sky, so he grabs a novel from the stack of used books he bought earlier that week, goes into his little living room. He has a tiny balcony, just wide enough for a couple people to stand on, or for him to sit with his back against the railing and his knees bent a bit to support the book on it. He faces away from the sun and the light hits the pages perfectly, and he decides this probably isn't such a bad idea. He could enjoy doing this regularly. He might even be able to study out here, if it's not too distracting. He'd just have to make sure none of his note blew away in the wind.

 

It's as Shinji is finishing the first chapter in his novel that he hears distant shouting, and he looks up. It's the sound of kids playing—it doesn't sound anything like frightened screaming. He watches as a group of boys and a couple girls play soccer in the park across the road from his apartment building. The field isn't a soccer field, and it's not perfectly level, so the kids keep kicking the ball hard enough that it gets away from them and flies free and someone has to go chasing after it. The fact that they aren't really playing properly and don't seem to care...it seems like a lot of fun.

 

Before he really thinks about what he's doing, Shinji folds over the corner of his page in the book and heads back inside, closing the balcony door and heading straight through the living room and toward his front door.

 

His feet carry him across the quiet main street in his neighbourhood and over to the park. He thinks it will be fun to watch the people playing soccer, but he brought his book just in case, so it doesn't look too weird that he's just sitting there.

 

“Ikari?”

 

Shinji looks up from his feet and sees Aida waving at him from the field. He raises his hand halfway in a little wave to reply. When he looks around, he notices that he recognizes almost everyone in the field, although there's a few kids his age that he doesn't think he's met before. There's Aida, and Suzuhara, Sakurai, Tachibana, and Watanabe. There's a couple other boys he doesn't know, and he spots Horaki sitting with Motomiya under a tree.

 

“You come to play?” Suzuhara shouts across the distance, flapping the bottom of his t-shirt to fan himself off.

 

Shinji's not really dressed for it. He's in long pants and a button-up—it's almost their normal school uniform. “Um, I can just watch. It's okay,” he says with a glance back to where the girls are waiting in the shade.

 

“Really?” Suzuhara scoffs. “You're gonna sit it out with the other ladies?”

 

“Hey!” Tachibana shouts from where she's holding the ball. Suzuhara seems to ignore her.

 

“C'mon, Ikari. You can be on my team. I can pick up your slack,” he laughs. “You're a man, right? Get over here and play.”

 

Shinji can't really see a way out of it. He definitely doesn't want this school to be like his last one. He doesn't want to sit things out and not get close to anybody. He wants to make friends with everyone. Actually, even though he almost got in a fight with Suzuhara last week, it seems like he wants to be friends too. It seems like everyone does.

 

Shinji clenches his teeth and nods. “Alright. Just tell me what we're using as the goal, I guess.”

 

The rules that everyone is playing by are...weird. Shinji can't follow them. There seems to be only one goal, but to score they had to go to the other end of the field and back. He's completely lost, given that he doesn't know the rules of _normal_ soccer besides 'kick the ball in the net,' so he settles on passing the ball to Suzuhara whenever he gets it. He thinks they're winning, so the strategy can't be too terrible.

 

Shinji gets tired and overheated quickly and decides that no matter how Suzuhara and Aida tease him, he's going to sit in the shade with the girls.

 

“Thought you were a man, Ikari,” Suzuhara laughs, panting.

 

“I'm a man who needs to sit down, I guess,” he surprises himself by retorting.

 

Suzuhara laughs again and turns back to the game, and apparently that's that.

 

Shinji spends the rest of the afternoon in the shade. Sometimes some of the guys come over to rest or to flirt with the girls—mostly Motomiya, Shinji notices—and sometimes someone will talk to him. Mostly he just listens, but no one acts like he's a creep for sitting there quietly. It's nice. It's really nice.

 

* * *

 

 

The next day Shinji wakes up a little earlier, and cooks himself breakfast, and tries to spend an hour studying, but he's distracted. He really only manages twenty minutes before he admits to himself that he wants to go back to the field. Even if no one is there today, he can still take a book and study, or just read. But he had fun yesterday, with everyone. He feels like that's what he's supposed to do with his weekend.

 

His classmates are there again. Not all of them, but it's Suzuhara, and Aida, and Horaki, and Motomiya, and Sakurai. As soon as he can see them, they notice him too.

 

“Ikari! Come over here so we have even teams!”

 

“Toji, we told you we're not playing,” Horaki calls from her place under the shade of the trees.

 

“We still need another guy for even teams,” Suzuhara calls back.

 

Shinji's not sure if he even wanted to play when he decided to come here, but he doesn't question it now. He wore his gym shorts.

 

He plays for the same amount of time as he did yesterday before he decides he needs something to drink. Everyone tells him what they want from the vending machine at the convenience store near his apartment building. He hears the playing stop as he head across the field. Maybe they're all waiting for him to come back.

 

When Shinji reaches the store, he takes a moment to realize that something looks odd about the machine. He realizes that there must normally be a light inside it, because today it looks dark. The buttons, which are normally back-lit, are also dark. He doesn't know the neighbourhood well so he doesn't know where he would find another vending machine, but he doesn't see any up or down the block. What he does notice is that all the traffic lights are dark too—they aren't even flashing red like they would in a normal power outage. They're just dead.

 

Power outages used to be fun, when he lived with his teacher. They were a time when nobody had an excuse to be away from each other—there was no TV or radio, and it was too dark to read, so they would go for a walk through the neighbourhood or play board games by candlelight. He thinks that's probably the same for everyone his age—power outages were fun because they were different.

 

In Tokyo-3, Shinji isn't sure that a power outage on a clear day is going to be fun. He walks back to the park with his fists clenched by his side, tense but trying to breathe and relax. Do the alarms work when there's no electricity? Will their phones work? Will the evacuation shelters be unlocked? Don't the Evangelions need to be plugged in?

 

His classmates are still playing soccer when he returns, and they take a minute to notice that he hasn't come back with cold drinks.

 

“Ikari?” Aida asks, stopping the ball with his foot.

 

“The power is off,” he says simply. He doesn't know whether it's normal. He doesn't know whether it means anything. It probably doesn't mean anything.

 

There's a short pause. “You sure?” Suzuhara asks.

 

Shinji nods. “It's off in my neighbourhood,” he tells them. Really, that's all he knows about it.

 

It takes everyone just a moment to agree to head to the other end of the field and see if there's any power on there. They go together, joking a it half-heartedly but mostly quiet. When they reach the road, Shinji notices there aren't any cars driving by. The traffic lights aren't on here either.

 

“Yeah, my phone doesn't have any reception,” Motomiya says, looking at her screen.

 

Aida frowns and pulls out his phone. “Well that's not normal,” he says.

 

“Whaddaya mean,” Suzuhara asks, peaking over his friend's shoulder.

 

“We should at least get data. The satellite signals should still reach us. And we'd have reception for calls if the phone towers up on the foothills had power. It's basically impossible for us to have no reception at all, outside in the middle of Tokyo-3.”

 

Shinji feels sick. He feels like his spit has gone sour. He feels like he wants to scream. “Where's the nearest shelter,” he asks in a calm voice.

 

Motomiya points. They all start walking.

 

The shelter is a fifteen minute walk from the end of the field where they were standing. They barely speak during their walk, passing quietly through the city and listening for the sounds of the earth shaking. They don't hear any traffic, or find any other people. Shinji quietly wonders how long they must have been playing without realizing. He doesn't say anything because he doesn't want to hear anyone reply, because he knows there wouldn't be an evacuation if nothing was wrong.

 

The shelter they reach is one that Motomiya leads them to. She says her friend's neighbourhood evacuates here, so she knows the address.

 

Shinji waits at the back of their group nervously while they try to enter the shelter. Motomiya tries the door first, and then Sakurai insists that a man should try to open it. It doesn't budge for either of them.

 

“Well, if it's locked, we have to find somewhere else to go,” Horaki insists. But where else can they go? All the other shelters will be locked too, won't they?

 

They hear a crash and everyone shouts. They turn and look down the long streets. No one spots an angel or even an Eva anywhere, but now they can hear something. Something is attacking.

 

“We have to find somewhere else!” Horaki repeats with a shout. “Come on!”

 

She, Motomiya, and Sakurai turn and start to hurry in the opposite direction of the noise. Shinji moves to follow them but notices Suzuhara and Aida haven't moved. “We have to go with Horaki-san,” Shinji insists to them.

 

“You kiddin'?” Suzuhara scoffs. “Nowhere's gonna be safe! You can hide under a table somewhere if you wanna but everywhere is gonna be the same. If we're gonna be in danger anyways...”

 

“...don't you want to see the fight?” Aida finishes for him.

 

They're scared. Shinji can hear it in their voices.

 

“You're a man, right, Ikari?” Suzuhara insists. “You wanna see it too, right?”

 

He doesn't. He doesn't want to see an Eva fighting ever again. He doesn't want to be near an angel. He doesn't want to be in Tokyo-3. Why would any of them want to be?

 

Shinji looks down at his feet. “No. I don't want to go.”

 

“Fine,” Suzuhara says. Shinji thinks he sounds scared and angry. “Come on, Kensuke. Guess it's just the men who're goin'.”

 

“Yeah, guess so,” Aida replies after a moment.

 

They leave. Shinji doesn't watch them go. He stands in the street, looking at his feet.

 

There's nowhere to go. Nowhere is safe, but everywhere is safer than going toward the angel, right? As long as he doesn't have to see the angel he'll be okay, right? Kaworu said Rokubungi was able to fight it. They need to trust her and let her fight.

 

He can't hear Suzuhara's and Aida's footsteps anymore. He hears the rumbling from the angel, or from the Eva.

 

The cicadas are quiet.

 

He starts running.

 

It's easy to find where the fight is happening. The noises get louder and more frequent. Shinji's lungs hurt. He's breathing too heavy even for the pace he's running. He's terrified. He's scared for Suzuhara and Aida, too. They were in the shelter that day, too. They know they could die. They might all die.

 

Shinji climbs to the top of a small hill and sees a spider. It's only got four legs, each one perched on a skyscraper, and some kind of liquid is reflecting the sunlight as it oozes from the bottom. It's totally still, now. But he thinks he can feel the ground shaking. Maybe it's just his heartbeat. He can't catch his breath.

 

Shinji doesn't see Suzuhara and Aida.

 

He watches the angel for a moment before he looks around. Evangelion Unit 00 is at the end of the city, standing on foothill with a rifle raised and aims. He doesn't blink, and in a moment it fires.

 

There's an instant where everything is quiet, and then the noise reaches him and Shinji's hands fly up to cover his ears.

 

The angel sways back and forth on its long legs, weaving around and dodging the rifle's fire. When it moves far enough, the liquid seeping from its underbelly splashes along the concrete and smaller buildings below it and steam erupts. Acid? It's oozing acid? It's trying to get underground?

 

The steam fills the air in a huge cloud, and Unit 00 stops firing. Rokubungi couldn't hit the angel with a clear line of sight. She'll probably have to move closer.

 

Where are Suzuhara and Aida?

 

Unit 00 lowers its rifle and rushes forward, sliding down the hill and then taking off through the city streets toward the angel. Shinji wants to move closer, and he wants to run away.

 

Rokubungi fires the rifle as she runs, and it dispurses some of the steam. The angel emerges from it—first its long legs and then its broad body parts the cloud. It climbs up higher building like steps until it's looming over Unit 00. She raises her rifle to fire at its belly, but it drops more acid on the Evangelion. The rifle is dropped. The unit drops onto its back and rolls, moving quickly away. Shinji sees steam billowing off the Eva. Patches of armour have gaping holes that look charred.

 

Its head turns away from the angel and it freezes. Shinji holds his breath. Didn't Aida say the Evas need to be plugged in? What is she doing? What will they do if she runs out of power?

 

The spider crawls forward, moving to stand above the machine again. The Eva drops to its hands and knees, hunching to the ground like it's in pain. Shinji watches, frozen, as acid pours down and it writhes. What is she doing? She has to kill it or it will kill her! Why isn't she attacking? He has to be able to believe in her!

 

Where are Suzuhara and Aida?

 

When the Eva begins to move again, shakily struggling to stand, Shinji realizes what Rokubungi was doing. He realizes where his classmates were. He realizes she must be protecting them. She must be risking herself to protect everyone.

 

The machine manages to stand. One side of its head has melted so much that it looks caved-in. The Eva's knife deploys and it reaches up to grab it. It takes a few careful steps backward, away from the taller buildings, and then one of its knees buckles.

 

The spider creeps forward. It's so slow. Shinji starts screaming for her to move, but nothing changes. It moves forward slowly, and the Eva shakes and struggles but it doesn't stand. When the angel descends from the skyscrapers to reach Rokubungi, Shinji is still screaming.

 

As the acid reaches it, the Eva hauls itself up on one leg and topples forward, the knife held in both hands, and plunges it into the spider with all its weight.

 

Everything stops. Everything finally stops for a moment. Everything is quiet.

 

The angel collapses. It seems to erupt with blood.

 

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, you know what's hard? Writing KawoShin stories without Kaworu in them. But he'll be back shortly.


	4. I can't bear to look at you.

 

 

 

_The lights are flashing but he can't hear the evacuation alarm. The shelter. They're not safe in the shelter._

 

_The ceiling opens up and sunlight pours in. He can't hear anything. People are probably screaming. He is screaming. He watches as the angel appears within his field of vision. Or is it an Eva? It's huge. A monster shaped like a person. It draws back its fist. Shinji covers his eyes, but he can still see._

 

_Kensuke. It kills Kensuke._

 

_He can smell the blood. He can feel it on his face. Everything is covered in it._

 

* * *

 

“It's Katsuragi Misato-san!” Suzuhara shouts from the window. The guys in the class let out excited shouts and crowd to the windows. The girls sigh and roll their eyes, but a few get up to peek outside too. Shinji frowns, looking around for an explanation, before he gets up and goes to the window too.

 

He gets there just in time to see a red car swing into the parking lot below, tires screeching as it slides into a vacant space. The driver's side door swings open and a woman emerges in high heels, a tight skirt, and a top with a low-plunging neckline. He's never seen her before, and no one calls her 'sensei,' so Shinji leans over to Suzuhara. “Who is that?”

 

“Misato-san, the goddess who reigns over the NERV Operations department. Are you tellin' me you, of all people, dunno who she is?”

 

Shinji looks over at his friend with a frown. “What do you mean, 'of all people'?”

 

Before Shinji gets an answer, the guys start hooting and shouting out the window. He looks back down into the parking lot where Katsuragi has stepped around to the other side of her car and is flashing the boys a peace sign and a big smile.

 

Shinji doesn't like his first impression of her.

 

The other door to the car opens, and the boys quiet down before they start shouting again. A girl dressed in their school uniform—clearly foreign, with bright orange hair—steps out of the car and shoots them an unimpressed look before saying something to Katsuragi and turning on her heel to march toward the school entrance.

 

“I hope she's in our class,” Sakurai jokes.

 

“Oh, Rokubungi-san and Nagisa-kun are back, too,” Tachibana says from where she's apparently been watching at the window.

 

Shinji's gaze turns quickly back to the car, where Kaworu and Rokubungi are climbing out.

 

“They're okay,” Shinji hears Horaki whisper.

 

They're both okay.

 

* * *

 

The foreign girl, it seems, is in fact in their class. Everyone flocks to her immediately when she steps through the door except Aida, Horaki, and Shinji. His two friends are off to the side, speaking quietly with a startled-looking Rokubungi. Shinji waits at his desk quietly, since Aida would probably want to talk to her first.

 

“Good morning, Shinji,” Kaworu says, sliding into his seat and propping his chin on his fist. He looks completely fine—Shinji doesn't see any bruises or bandaids.

 

“Kaworu. I'm glad you're alright,” he replies sincerely.

 

His classmate looks puzzled. “Why wouldn't I be alright?”

 

Shinji blinks. “Oh. Uh, I guess I just assumed that whatever you were doing overseas involved your Evangelion.”

 

“Well you're right—it did.” He doesn't say anything more about it than that, and Shinji realizes he's probably pestering Kaworu—he's asked over and over for Shinji not to worry about him, though he's not really sure he can help it. All he can really do is try to keep it to himself.

 

“Oh. Okay. Well I hope it was a good trip.”

 

Kaworu smiles. “It was interesting. But I'm very glad to be back.”

 

The noise of everyone crowding the new student—or demanding that the boys stop being rude by crowding the new student—dies down when their teacher enters the classroom. The students move reluctantly to their seats, and Shinji notices Rokubungi walking down the aisle of desks, her eyes cast down.

 

Shinji almost doesn't say anything, but he thinks of the cuts on Rokubungi's hands last week.

 

“Hey, uh, Rokubungi?”

 

She stops and looks over at him, eyes wide and more expressive than he's ever really seen before.

 

“I'm glad. That you're okay, I mean.”

 

She nods and takes her seat. Shinji ducks his head with embarrassment, but he decides that he's glad he said it.

 

Instead of starting with role-call, their teacher gestures for the orange-haired girl to step to the front of the class. She sweeps forward, turning and planting her hands on her hips. “My name's Shikinami Asuka Langly,” she proclaims loudly. “I'm the pilot of the newest and most advanced Evangelion, the Unit-02.” She nods, as if that's all she wants to say.

 

There's a few moments of stunned silence before the class explodes with chatter yet again.

 

Shinji turns to Kaworu, who glances back at him. “Is she really,” he mouths across the aisle. Why are all the Eva pilots high school kids?

 

Kaworu shrugs and nods in response to him.

 

“Is that why you went overseas? To bring her back?” He has to lean over for his whispers to be heard over the noise of his classmates.

 

“Mostly,” Kaworu replies. “I don't think she appreciated my presence, though.”

 

Shinji turns his head, glancing back to the front of the class. He freezes and looks away again when he sees Shikinami glaring at him, looking almost furious, with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

 

“She seems a bit...” He doesn't want to be rude to Kaworu about his fellow Evangelion pilot, but his first impression of Shikinami is even worse than the impression Katsuragi gave; noisy, arrogant, and pretty inconsiderate.

 

Kaworu watches Shinji with an expectant smile. “'A bit' what?”

 

“Bold,” he finishes lamely.

 

“Hmm. That's a pretty good euphemism,” Kaworu replies softly.

 

Shikinami takes her seat where the teacher directs her—ahead of Shinji and to the right. Role-call begins like normal, and he no longer needs to pay attention to learn his classmate's names. Still, when Aida is the first one called, Shinji is struck by how lucky they are that his name doesn't have to be crossed of the list this morning. He wonders if this class has had to deal with something like that before. He wonders if they would consider it normal, even. Horaki said that 'this kind of thing' happens all the time—maybe she meant things like that, too. Losing a classmate. Just having to pretend they weren't here.

 

“Ikari?”

 

Shinji opens his mouth to respond, but shuts it with a flinch when Shikinami stands, slamming her hands on her desk. “ _Ikari?_ _Him?_ ”

 

Everyone turns to stare at him. What is he expected to say, though? That _is_ his name.

 

 _Ikari? Him?_ What's that supposed to mean?

 

Everyone is still watching him. They sit quietly, just looking at him. They probably want to know what she's talking about too, but he doesn't. He has no idea. Should tell her that? Would he look like an idiot if he did?

 

“Please take your seat, Shikinami-san, unless there's a problem,” their teacher says. “Ikari is here today. Alright, Tachibana? Tachibana, please pay attention.”

 

And just like that, they move on. Shinji stares at his desk. He doesn't want to look up, in case he sees Shikinami staring at him. Anyone could still be staring at him, really, and he doesn't even know _why_.

 

* * *

 

There's a piano in the music room of the school, and Kaworu seems to have requested the key to access it that evening. Shinji follows him up the stairs, nervous that he'll be asked to play it. He wants to listen to Kaworu play, but he's not confident enough in his own skills to do anything other than sit at the bench.

 

“Do you have a piano at home, Kaworu-kun?”

 

The other boy looks back over his shoulder as they climb to the top floor where the music room is nestled away from the normal classrooms. “I live in an apartment allotted to me by NERV. There isn't really room for a piano.”

 

“Oh,” Shinji replies. “My apartment is pretty small, too. I've never lived anywhere big enough to keep a real piano. When I lived with my teacher he had an electric keyboard, though.”

 

They reach the top of the stairs and the keys jingle as Kaworu selects the right one. “A keyboard is a good way to practice and become comfortable, but the music is simulated. What we produce today will be our real songs.”

 

Shinji feels his neck growing warm. _'We'?_ So much for thinking he could just watch quietly.

 

The music room is cast in warm afternoon sunlight, which catches on the smooth lacquer of the baby grand piano in the centre. Pianos are supposed to be a good instrument to learn—it's impossible to not hit a note as long as it's tuned well, after all—but they're so intimidating. They conjure images of prodigies in tuxedos playing for huge audiences. Shinji fiddles with the buttons of his shirt collar and enters the room. The rubber of his indoor shoes squeaks in the quiet space.

 

Kaworu steps up to the piano, and it almost seems like he's forgotten Shinji is in the room. His bag slides from his shoulder and drops with a muffled thump to the ground next to the bench. Kaworu bends over, sliding a thumb along the empty music rack, a small smile on his face.

 

“A piano is a tool with almost limitless potential for expression,” he says abruptly, startling Shinji. “Eighty-eight keys, in different combinations, can convey every experience in a human's long existence. The notes you can choose are always the same, but even the same song played twice will produce a different result.”

 

Shinji thinks he gets it. Some days he has a good practice, and some days he can't make anything sound right. Every time is a little bit different. It's always bothered him—he wants to do it perfectly, but if it's different every time it can't ever be perfect, really. But the idea doesn't seem to bother Kaworu at all.

 

The other boy lifts the fallboard and sits down at the bench, looking over his shoulder expectantly at Shinji. “Come sit.”

 

Shinji goes and sits. The bench is small and he imagines he can feel heat coming from Kaworu's side where it nearly touches his, the cotton of his shirt sometimes brushing Shinji's. Their knees are dangerously close, and Shinji is sure they'll bump together if one of them tries to use the pedals. He slouches, self conscious, trying not to bump shoulders with his classmate or get in the way.

 

“What would you like me to play?”

 

Shinji blinks. “Whatever you want to play, I guess?”

 

“Hmm.” Kaworu brings his hand up to his chin and pauses to think. “What do you think of Chopin's 66th Opus?”

 

Shinji isn't sure which one that is. In fact, he has no idea. He knows that Chopin is one of the greats, though, so he's excited to hear Kaworu play one of his pieces. “Sure,” he replies simply.

 

Kaworu closes his eyes, that ever-present gentle smile on his face, and he begins to sway a little in his chair. It's a long, quiet moment or two before his fingers leap onto the keys and he bends over as if pulled down toward the music. In this small room with this proper piano, the music fills the room completely.

 

The piece is fast, and Kaworu's fingers dance confidently up and down the keys. Shinji thinks he probably wouldn't like this song if he wasn't watching it be played in front of him—it's almost too fast, and too hectic. The mood changes suddenly, many times, just when he thinks he's sinking into the feeling it's trying to convey. But while he watches Kaworu play, he thinks he understands what his classmate was saying about the piano. It's watching the pianist make the music that has him transfixed in this moment. He wonders if Kaworu is feeling everything that the song portrays, as he plays it.

 

The last four notes fall and echo into the music room, and Shinji's ears are ringing. He becomes aware of himself, all of a sudden, self conscious about how he's been staring silently at Kaworu since they came here and how he's leaving sweaty finger prints on the lacquered bench.

 

Startling red eyes open and Shinji blinks away, looking down at the keys as though they fascinate him.

 

“Now it's your turn to play,” Kaworu coaxes with gentle excitement.

 

“Maybe you can give me some pointers,” Shinji says with a laugh. “I really am just learning, like I told you.”

 

“Every musician is always learning, or they wouldn't play any longer. Play what you feel like playing, at whatever speed feels right.”

 

It's humiliating, really, to have to place his fingers on the keys and begin. It's so simple; he can only play a few songs using both hands at once. He's tense and embarrassed and considers stopping with an apology when he hears notes begin to be added to the piece. They're accents at first, and then an underlying melody, and then Shinji is playing with more speed, focusing on the parts he knows how to do confidently, falling into the tempo Kaworu has set.

 

It's an endless song, but it's over too soon.

 

Shinji didn't realize he closed his eyes, but when he opens them Kaworu looks over and gives him a wide grin. “That was wonderful, Shinji-kun. I really enjoyed playing with you.”

 

He watches expectantly, and Shinji is struck once again by the impression that it's impossible for Kaworu to be embarrassed about anything. It's refreshing because it seems like he's always completely honest, but it's also not something he feels he can copy.

 

“It was fun,” Shinji says with a smile. He folds his hands back into his lap. He wants to say that Kaworu really did all the work, but he doesn't think his friend would see it that way.

 

A bell rings, signalling that all students who aren't part of a teacher-supervised after-school activity need to start leaving the school grounds for the evening.

 

“I guess we have to go now,” Shinji says, standing and shuffling away from the piano bench.

 

“That's alright,” Kaworu replies. He stands too, settling the fallboard back over the keys. “We can come again next week. What would you like to do next?”

 

“Next?”

 

“Unless you're busy, I was hoping to spend more time with you.”

 

 _It's things just like that_ , Shinji thinks as he finds himself staring at the floor yet again.

 

“I'm not busy,” he replies.

 

“That's great,” Kaworu says as he follows Shinji out of the room and locks the door behind him. He slips the key into the pocket of his trousers and they both begin down the stairs. “So then, where _would_ you like to go next?”

 

“Maybe we can just...walk?”

 

Another smile, sweet as always. “Lead the way.”

 

* * *

 

They walk aimlessly through the city, generally in the direction of Shinji's apartment building because it's familiar, but with no real plans to go anywhere. Even though it's almost evening, the sun is still out and the air is still hot and thick. There aren't many other people walking or driving, so it's nearly silent except for the cicadas and the sounds of their footsteps.

 

“Hey, Kaworu,” Shinji speaks to break the silence that makes him feel self-conscious.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Can I ask...why didn't you go with Rokubungi and Shikinami? Don't you need to be doing something with the Evangelions too?”

 

Kaworu shrugs loosely. “I refused to participate.”

 

Shinji looks over, startled. “You refused? You're allowed to do that?” He'd thought that NERV was like a military organization or something, and that it would be strict and serious. But, now that that idea is being challenged, he realizes that none of the Evangelion pilots seem all that military-like. Neither does Katsuragi Misato.

 

“Commander Ikari has no real choice if one of us refuses. We can't be forced to synchronize with the Evas.”

 

Shinji is silent for a moment, trying to picture his father's reaction if he were to refuse something like that. Trying to remember his face. It's never been a very clear memory.

 

“What's my father like?”

 

Kaworu doesn't seem surprised that Shinji wouldn't know. “Distant,” he says simply.

 

Shinji can definitely agree with that.

 

“Though it seems he hasn't always been that way,” his classmate adds.

 

Shinji remembers, sort of, how his father used to be around. At least, he remembers him leaving, which means they must have been together before. When his mother died, Ikari Gendo left.

 

“So he's distant with all of you?”

 

“Of course.” Kaworu doesn't elaborate, so Shinji doesn't know what he means. Kaworu-kun, Rokubungi, Shikinami, and Katsuragi-san are all so different. He doesn't understand how his father could dislike them all, especially given that he's their commander. Given that they all seem to be prodigies at what they do.

 

“Have you been to this park before, Shinji-kun?”

 

Shinji looks around and realizes that they've wandered into his neighbourhood while he's been thinking. It's the same park he visited last weekend, when Kaworu was away. Before the angel attack, he had thought that it would be nice to bring Kaworu here, with everyone else.

 

“My house is near here,” he tells his friend, pointing to the other side of the field where his apartment building is mostly hidden but can still be seen since he knows what it looks like. “I came last weekend.” The sentence holds some weight for him—it goes unspoken, but he remembers the feeling when everyone realized something was wrong.

 

Kaworu doesn't seem to notice. “It's nice. Would you like to sit together, Shinji-kun?”

 

Shinji almost asks why. “Just sit? Is there anything you want to do?”

 

“We can do anything you want to do.”

 

“No! No, we can sit. It's been nice, just to talk. For me, anyways.”

So they sit. Shinji chooses the tree where he sat with his classmates out of the sun, watching the guys play soccer. There's no one playing now, since it's getting late and there's still school tomorrow. The neighbourhood is quiet at the best of times, anyways. It's just them.

 

The sun is at the horizon now, and the sky is a beautiful orange, the clouds gold and pink. Cicadas are still calling, but soon it will be crickets taking their place. Even with the endless summer, the temperature still drops when the sun sets, and the colder nights are a relief.

 

Despite what happened before, with Kaworu here, he sort of feels safe. It's strange. It's not like the Evangelion can protect them if anything happens now, but he just can't bring himself to feel scared. It's too peaceful.

 

He tips his head back, leaning it against the tree.

 

“Thank you for inviting me here, Shinji,” Kaworu says, calm but cheerful. “It means a lot to me that you would bring me to a place that's special to you.”

 

Shinji blinks. “What, no, I mean, of course. It's a public park, after all. Of course you can come here. Why would it be special to me?”

 

“You invited me to spend time with you here. Nothing is special or important unless it's imbued with human meaning, after all. It clearly is associated with a lot of strong emotions for you. So this place is special because _you're_ here.”

 

Shinji still doesn't get how anyone could say the kind of things Kaworu says without sounding cheesy. He also has no idea what to say back.

 

“It's really no problem. I just like it here so I thought you might, too,” he responds honestly.

 

“I do.”

 

It's really stupid of him, but he feels sort of proud. Everything is so easy with Kaworu. It's so easy to make him smile. It feels like it's impossible to say or do the wrong thing around him.

 

Kaworu tips his head, frowning. “Hey,” he says gently. A pale hand reaches up, and the pad of a thumb traces up Shinji's cheek to mop up a tear. “We can come here as often as you like, you know.”

 

Shinji laughs, and it sounds like a high-pitched gurgle. “Okay.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BETTER LATE THAN NEVER, RIGHT? ...honestly, I'm really sorry for how long this chapter took. I find long pauses in fics make it hard for the story to flow when you read it, so it really doesn't benefit anyone. I've just had a crazy month and it hasn't given me any spare time.
> 
> Also, this is a pretty slow-paced chapter, and not a whole lot happened. Sorry guys. The pace will pick up with every chapter from here on. Thank you for continuing this far!


End file.
